Social media sites see surge in popularity

3rd July 2008

Social media websites such as YouTube and Facebook have witnessed a significant leap in usage by UK web users in the last 12 months, according to new figures.

Statistics from research company Nielsen Online show that the two sites saw the fastest growth based on the number of minutes spent on each website by Britons per month between June 2007 and May 2008.

Facebook experienced a 387 per cent increase in the number of total minutes spent on it by UK internet users per month to 2.2 billion, while a 50 per cent rise was seen at YouTube.

Other fast-growing sites included Second Life, Google and Wikipedia, while Britons were found to have spent the most amount of time overall on MSN Messenger in the last year.

"The representation of sectors such as games, search and retail - through sites such as Second Life, Google and Asda respectively – show the health and vitality of the entire online arena," said Alex Burmaster, Nielsen Online internet analyst.

Nielsen revealed recently that May was a particularly good month for sites in the user-generated content, entertainment and search categories in terms of UK audience.